Saturday, December 20, 2014

Luxury means something different to different people. To inmates in the
Antwerp jail it are poetry books in a language the prisoners can read as City Poet Laureate Stijn Vrancken found out when the he looked into what
category of books were most borrowed from the jail's library. And yes, to his astonishment,
it was poetry. So Stijn asked his fellow poets, writers and readers to
bring their books to the 'Letteren huis' (House of letters) in as many
languages as we had. I brought a stack consisting of Dutch, French,
Cornish, German, English and Italian. Walking through the city with my the emptied caddy, I came upon a magnificent place, totally in period, tastefully restaurated. I asked whether I might take some pictures... I was, as I often do, wearing black. So the owner of the shop explained I shouldn't wear black, that doing so is cheap. One should only wear silk and real cashmere and color, and pattern... In other words to buy stunning clothing one can wear but few times on social occasions because otherwise people would say: Oh, there she is with that gorgeous dress, again and again... He then showed me some mindbogglingly beautiful dresses, one with a coat lined in the same silk pattern as the dress itself. I said: I obviously could never afford that lifestyle. His answer surprised me: I should find a sponsor... I can't figure out what he really means. Was he seeing Elisa Doolittle whom he could turn into a lady? Was he suggesting I should invest in one such dress and find a lover with good taste and money to burn?

So I have been wondering what my personal luxury would be: A pretty colorful, aging hippie hoody? Or is it rather being in the warm company of interesting people even if they are penniless, impecunious and without funds, had to flee their country for speaking out, for being at risk because of poems they wrote. My luxury is knowing, Tade, Déo and Hazim, and reading their work... Knowing Rollean and his always nonviolent stand for justice and peace.

May they all be safe. To them safety is luxury.

To me luxury is being with four people in a room and each one is from a different continent...

Thursday, December 18, 2014

Having moved in the same circles when young, the setting full of street musicians, painters and poets our lives took different paths. Bieke Stengos emigrated to Canada, studied some more and has a magnificent daughter. What is the same in our lives is that we both write. She just has a book out published by Vocamus Press, her second book of poetry. Her inspiration is the land, the landscape, the changing season. her poetry is filled with the strange beauty of melancholy. She came back to Belgium for a brief time and thus salon 12b invited her and the other poets present for a reading: Lucienne Stassaerts, who read impressive poems from work in progress: Souvenirs part II, Frank De Vos, Silent Bear, myself.

One poem by Bieke:

XIV

When I dream you into beingI find myself lost in a fog-invaded forestOf glimmering naked treesThat risefrom the blue-white snowcold like your bodyBefore heat devoured it

I search for a place to breathe freelyBut I get lostIn the press of your lipsAgainst the stretched skin of timeAnd the memory of you fadingLike a melting negativeOf a city with no sunWhere streets run dead into low walls

When I open my eyesTo a black line of upright treesI vanish from sight*Translation nto Dutch for whom needs it:XIV

Monday, December 15, 2014

Last night with a friend, in my festively lit town, we enjoyed a nice sashimi dinner: excellent raw fish, healthy and delicious. After green tea ice cream and white sesame ice cream, we saw in my preferred movie theater 'Cartoons' the movie Coming home. The story about love, guilt and grace is set in China. The father was a dissident and ended up for 30 years in jail. The daughter grew up under the so called "Cultural Revolution". She is a great and ambitious dancer and will do anything to secure the lead role, even betraying her father. The mother is a professor, loving and missing her husband. Finally a date is set for his return and then the movie turns into the sadness of dementia. She doesn't recognize her husband and for the betrayal by her daughter, she has chased her off. The husband, an intelligent, kind and compassionate man, comes up with ways to try and make his wife recognize him, which happens just one fleeting moment. He reads the letters he wrote but could send from jail to her... So he becomes the 'letter reader', he tunes the piano and he is the piano tuner. The daughter confesses it was her who betrayed him... He said I knew. It is all right... He knew what the cultural revolution did to people. He finally writes a letter asking the mother to let her daughter stay with her again... so that she can take care of her. The father becomes an accepted presence in whatever role it is that day. It is a beautiful and sad movie. I shed a few tears for my mother who passed away in February with dementia.

So with the beauty and understanding coming from art, I try to live my life to the fullest. I wish you all a beautiful end of year season.... May it be Hanukkah, Christmas, or a family fest... May there be peace, food, health and beauty for all.

Sunday, December 14, 2014

Poetry has been an important factor in my life. I always read a lot, beginning with stories three book a week from the local library. When I had read everything in my age group for girls, the librarian refused to give me boys books or books above my age. I was devastated. Undaunted I roamed my mothers library, most were in Signet Pocketbooks, in English, whereas I had learned to read and write in Dutch. I felt hungry, actually starved all the time. I had Cinderella, a Disney book, the now politically incorrect, Little Black Sambo and a German book "Struwels Peter, an educational book with examples of what not to do... I was looking and looking for something else. I kept a slim notebook with quotes I came about or an occasional poem. I remember the first quote I noted was: No man is an island. "Man" then
already meaning human to me and thus including my young self. And then one day at secondary school, there it was, a dark poem, I did not understand by the Dutch poet Hendrik Marsman:

As I said, I didn't understand the poem, yet I knew it was important to me, that it was a turning point. I had no idea Marsman had taken Kiriloff, Kiriloff in de Daemonen from Dostojevsky... Had never heard from Dostojevksy... And then I came upon this poem by the same poet:

And that was the start of reading poetry, of writing poetry and translating poetry, and finally to the incredible Modern American Poetry course by Al Filreis: I found the course in 2013, took it again in 2014, am doing the 'modpoPLUS' and intend to do also modpo15. It is all about reading and wondering, close reading and wondering more deeply... So did poetry start for me.